15. 02. 10. - 11:00

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15. 02. 10. - 11:00

Nasty memories

A man has come forward in Russia claiming he is a survivor of the Nazi death camp of Sobibor who recognises accused guard John Demjanjuk from his time there.

Prosecutors in Munich pressing the 27,900 counts of accomplice to murder against 89-year-old Demjanjuk are now mulling over whether to call Alexei Weizen, 87, to come to Germany to testify against him.

The trial so far  has produced no-one who actually remembers seeing Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk on duty inside the extermination camp in Nazi occupied Poland in WW2.

"I remember him," said Weizen on Thursday. "I remember him quite clearly leading a group of prisoners out from the camp to work in nearby woods. I remember his face."

But he is a reluctant witness. "My heart is bad, there seems to be a lot of evidence against him. I don't want to travel so far," said the man who lost his whole family in the war.

Two other survivors of the camp where around 250,000 Jews were murdered in gas chambers have told the court of their treatment there, but cannot remember Demjanjuk.

Demjanjuk's trial was halted on Wednesday and Thursday due to his ill health. He has not entered a plea in the court and spends his time when judges are sitting sleeping through the testimony.

He was freed from a death sentence in Israel in 1993 after evidence placing him in another Nazi death camp proved to be unreliable. But German prosecutors worked unceasingly over the years since then to bring him to Germany as they believe they can prove he worked for the Germans "beyond reasonable doubt."

German Herald

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